A little-known arm of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has directed over $1 billion into “sexual and gender minority” research, including experimental studies on child sex changes over the last 10 years, according to a Daily Caller News Foundation review of grants.
Founded in 2015, the Sexual and Gender Minority Research Office (SGMRO) vows to “advance rigorous research on the health of SGM populations,” including “individuals who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, asexual, transgender, non-binary, Two-Spirit, queer, and/or intersex.” Though the office does not have grantmaking authority of its own, it coordinates and facilitates hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of research across NIH every year.
The office has helped secure over $1 billion in funding for a slew of studies on “sexual and gender minority” health over the past several years, including research into the stress of rural gay couples and the effects of puberty blocking drugs on minors as young as eight, according to NIH records. Under former President Joe Biden’s administration, the number of SGM studies funded by the NIH increased significantly, with at least 100 more being conducted annually from 2021-2024 as compared to 2017-2020.
“If the SGMRO is supporting research involving experimental medical interventions in minors, this requires thorough investigation,” wrote Stella O’Malley, the director of Genspect, a nonpartisan organization advocating for “non-medicalized solutions to gender distress,” in an email to the DCNF.
“Government funding for studies on puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones in healthy children is deeply concerning, given the lack of evidence for long-term benefits and the growing documentation of significant physical and psychological risks,” O’Malley continued, also noting that “most gender-distressed youth” resolve their angst without medical intervention. “These experiments are both unnecessary and harmful.”
Though a majority of Americans now oppose medical sex-change treatments for minors, according to multiple polls conducted between 2022 and 2024, several federally funded studies are actively prescribing these drugs to monitor their effects on children’s development.
Michael Costa, the editor-in-chief of Gays Against Groomers, an organization of LGBTQ+ identified individuals who oppose medical sex changes for minors, told the DCNF that “‘Gender-affirming care’ is pharmaceutical conversion therapy — nothing more than a euphemistic label for genital mutilation and sex lobotomy.”
President Donald Trump made rooting out gender ideology a central part of his 2024 campaign. On the day of his inauguration, the president signed an executive order ensuring that the federal government will only recognize the two immutable sexes, male and female.
On Tuesday, Trump directed all federal diversity, equity and inclusion staff to be placed on paid leave, eventually to be removed from government payroll entirely. The administration is expected to continue slashing what it considers to be unnecessary government departments and spending.
The NIH and the SGMRO did not immediately respond to multiple inquiries from the DCNF regarding the office’s status under the Trump administration.
While the office’s future funding remains uncertain, past reports reveal a vast menagerie of SGMRO studies funded through various NIH offices, several of which are described in the office’s fiscal year 2023 report. The DCNF compiled the five of the most unusual SGM studies that together received more than $2 million in funding from the NIH.
Experimental Hormone Testing On Minors For $707,054
Stanford University received $707,054 from the National Institute of Mental Health to conduct a study that monitors the impact of cross-sex hormones on the brains of minors.
The researchers claim that the study seeks to correct the lack of data for “early pubertal adolescents” taking cross-sex hormone drugs. They also note that this research has “never been conducted” on this age group. The research is ongoing until May 31, 2025.
A Suppressed Puberty Blocker Study For $1,111,300
The Children’s Hospital Of Los Angeles received $1,111,300 from Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development to conduct a study with the goal of giving puberty blockers to children and young adults. The subjects ranged from age eight to age 20, though the majority of puberty blocker recipients were 11 years old. The results have been kept under wraps by the research leader, Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy, due to the anticipated political backlash.
Olson-Kennedy, who has been referred to as “America’s best-known practitioner of youth gender medicine,” said she intends to eventually publish the data, according to The New York Times, which also noted that the project has received $9.7 million in government funding as of October 2024.
“I do not want our work to be weaponized,” Olson-Kennedy told The New York Times. “It has to be exactly on point, clear and concise. And that takes time.”
The California-based doctor now faces a lawsuit from a former patient, Kaya Clementine Breene, who alleged that Olson-Kennedy acted in a medically negligent manner as “a child can’t consent to becoming a lifelong patient.”
The Cass Review, an in-depth report published months before Olson-Kennedy’s interview on her own research, found that there was “weak evidence” to support the use of puberty blockers for adolescents, and that clinicians are unable to tell with “any certainty which children and young people will go on to have an enduring trans identity.”
Malaysian HIV Research For $100,000
The National Institute on Drug Abuse provided $100,000 to Yale University to conduct HIV research in Malaysia. The study’s abstract warns that Malaysia is facing a “rapidly expanding HIV epidemic” that is primarily impacting the “most-at-risk” individuals, including “people who inject drugs,” “men who have sex with men” and “female sex workers.” Researchers will provide Malaysian university students with five years of training to address “HIV prevention and treatment.”
“Our efforts will … ultimately … improve the health and well-being of SGM individuals across the nation,” former NIH Director Francis S. Collins wrote in the SGMRO Strategic Plan. Expensive SGM studies have been conducted in Malaysia, China, Jamaica, Russia and Peru in just the last three years.
Investigating the Stress of Rural Gay Couples For $481,970
The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism and the National Institute of General Medical Sciences funded a separate study conducted by the University of Nebraska focusing specifically on the experiences of economically challenged “sexual and gender minority couple[s].”
For nearly half a million dollars, researchers sought to prove that “alcohol use” was the cause of unhealthy relationships among these couples, and that the results would encourage a “psychological sense of connection with the LGBTQ+ community.” The results are yet to have been made public.
Testing The Impact of Testosterone On Vaginal Bacteria For $283,494
The University of Alabama at Birmingham received $283,494 from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to explore the impact of injecting testosterone into “vaginal specimens.”
While the researchers await an official conclusion post-peer-review, the effects of the study seem to be that “testosterone could have detrimental effects, including … an increased abundance of diverse bacteria, many associated with bacterial vaginosis.”
Researchers hoped to “identify ways to optimize the health benefits of testosterone in TGM [transgender-identified men],” however, the available information indicates that testosterone seems to present complications in “vaginal specimens.”
The SGMRO office, which directs millions of taxpayer dollars to these studies and many others, was created largely due to a 2011 report commissioned by the NIH under former President Barack Obama that found “relatively little health research” on LGBTQ populations.
Joseph Figliolia, a gender policy analyst at the Manhattan Institute, told the DCNF that the office “would need to commit to evidence-based medicine and biological realism,” but said that many researchers likely have “predetermined conclusions” before the completion of their studies.
“The problem is that [the SGMRO] shapes the types of studies that get funded … [the SGMRO] sets the tone of how all the offices at the NIH think about sex and gender.” Figliolia said. “I find it deeply troubling that the NIH would continue to promote the practice [of transitioning minors] despite the lack of evidence and refusal to put their evidence forward.”
Featured Image Credit: Rickyblax
